


The Blood of The Covenant

by SabineMichaelis



Category: Twilight
Genre: A Little bit of Homophobia, Angst, Awkward Family Dinners, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Unrequited Love, memory all alone in the moonlight, plenty of bi and pan characters, unexpected relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10099241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabineMichaelis/pseuds/SabineMichaelis
Summary: Jacob had been expecting to imprint at some point, but not now, and certainly not like this. Will Jacob need to forfeit his own happiness for the people he cares about?





	1. Shiver

**Author's Note:**

> I loved Twilight when I was younger. Edward and Jacob--vampire Professor X and puberty goals--were so cool and mysterious. At some point (around the time that Bella became pregnant and stopped being at all relatable to fourteen year old burgeoning lesbian me), I stopped loving those stories. But, I never stopped adoring those poorly characterized leading men. And so, if you're looking for some gay angst starring the gentlemen that we all once idolized, enjoy :)

Bella was always so beautiful. In the greyish light of the overcast Washington afternoon, her pearly skin almost glowed. Her dark eyelashes stood out starkly against her cheeks as they tried to hide teary eyes. It seemed like her eyes were always wet when she looked at Jacob these days. When had easy smiles been replaced by the constant worrying of her lips? The answer, of course, stood with his arm possessively clutching her waist and a scowl that was just this side of a snarl:

Edward fucking Cullen.

“So,” Jacob spat, directing his glare at the leech. 

“This is it, then?”

He was trying so hard not to look at Bella, hoping against hope that she would not answer the question he had needed to ask for months now. But his voice broke like the weedy teenager’s he had been not so long ago, and all three of them knew the question was for her. 

Bella opened her mouth, and then closed it. This time it was she who could not look at Jacob. This was what it all came down to: Edward or Jacob, her boyfriend or her friend, what was or what could be. 

He hated to see her in pain, even as a part of him was pleased that she even cared enough about him to feel conflicted. 

She looked up at him through wet lashes and bit her lip and Jacob  _ knew _ . He fucking knew that she had made her choice the moment she had landed back in the dead end town of Forks, Washington. Jacob knew what her choice was, and in a moment of clarity realized that he was not even angry. 

He would have chosen Edward too.

Jacob closed his eyes, bracing himself for the final blow. And then--

The wind changed.

________________________________________

 

A sudden breeze gusted through the parking lot, carrying with it the faint scent of the sea. Bella shivered and Edward instinctively pulled her closer, even as he recognized that it would do no good. Across the asphalt, Jacob convulsed as if he had been struck by lightning.

And then a howl tore through the air.

It was not exactly a wolf’s howl, containing none of the linguistic ululations. It was a single note--impossibly loud and grotesquely lovely. It rushed and roiled through Edward like a river, forcing him to take a step back and away from its source.

Edward flinched as his bones vibrated and his head ached with the force of the emotions erupting from the young man across from him. Their eyes met: gold and black, confused and terrified and

_ NopleasenopleasenopleaseRUN _

With a gasp, Jacob bolted. Edward heard the sounds of his clothes tearing as he transformed, all the while sprinting into the woods as though his life depended on it. The howl and the swarming buzz of his thoughts cut off abruptly as he left Edward’s range. 

“Jacob?” Bella cried belatedly, turning from the empty woods to Edward in obvious confusion.

“Why did he suddenly take off? Did something happen? Is everything ok?”

Edward looked down at her without really seeing her. His mind was occupied replaying the last few moments. The sound, his eyes, and that feeling--unidentifiable now that it was gone. 

Edward felt like he was missing something, maybe missing everything. 

Bella’s psychic silence had never felt so hollow.


	2. Run

Jacob ran faster than he ever had before, tearing through the forest relying on instinct to keep him from colliding with the trees. The note was still ringing inside his head, quieter now that he was away from  _ him _ . Still, he ran, willing the ache in his legs to overpower the ache in his heart. How could this happen? Why the fuck would--

A howl broke the silence of the forest. It was Sam.

_ Jacob, are you in danger?  _

Damn! Jacob’s forefoot turned on a loose stone and he had to slow to a more reasonable pace. He felt the others approaching and heard the babble of their thoughts.

_ Woah, Jake, slow down! _

_ What the hell, dude?  _

_ Is it the leeches? Are we gonna fight? _

_ Oooh I want to fight. This is so much better than-- _

The chatter went suddenly silent and Jacob realized that they could all feel him now. Then it started anew, but this time they all had the same question.

_ Who is it? _

_ Jacob, this is ridiculous. Stop at the next clearing. _

This last was Sam, and Jacob had no choice but to comply. Fear gripped him as he recognized that if Sam asked the question he dreaded, he would have to answer. 

No.

He could not tell his pack what had happened anymore than he could outrun his own feelings. They were so close now, he could hear their chorus of pants and light footfalls. He could see the clearing and his legs were weakening, so he did the only thing he could think of--he crumpled, naked and human, onto the forest floor.

Soon, he was surrounded by a pack of enormous wolves, all snuffling and pawing at him in bemusement. Sam was last. The jet black wolf padded in unhurriedly, letting the ranks part for him as he approached Jacob, who was sitting awkwardly. He was so exhausted that he felt like jelly, but his will was still strong enough to look the Sam-wolf in the eye. After a long moment of uncomfortable fidgeting, Sam sighed and shrank into himself. The others followed suit, fumbling with jeans and T shirts that they had carried with them. Leah pulled on what looked like her grandma's mumu. Only Sam stood resolutely nude, leveling a stern gaze at Jacob.

“If we all bolted when we imprinted, there would be a lot more cases of wolves getting hit on the highway. I hope I don’t have to tell you how stupid and dangerous that was.”

Jacob gritted his teeth. 

“I wasn’t going to go that far.” He responded, a little petulantly.

Sam crossed his arms. 

“So Bella finally told you to get lost?” Leah interjected,

“Or did you imprint on somebody else just in time for her to tell you she wants you after all?”

Sam shot her a look and she backed down.

“He wouldn’t have run away from Bella after everything.” Sam said, turning back to Jacob. “So, who is it?”

Jacob looked away, and then away again. He was still too tired to stand, and Sam was making no effort to cover anything. 

“Nobody.” He muttered, “I didn’t--”

“Don’t lie.” Sam barked. Then he sighed again.

“Look, I know it’s not easy to imprint on somebody other than the person you care about the most. It’s awkward and shitty, but at least you know Bella’s got Edward, so she’ll be fine.” Jacob fisted the dead leaves. He really wanted to think about anything other than Bella or Edward. Also, ‘she’ll be fine’ was pretty rich coming from the guy who had spent the better part of the last few years trying to expel the Cullens from the county.

“So, embarrassment aside, just tell us who it is and we can help you get through it. Maybe one of us knows her and we can put in a good word.”

_ Her.  _ That was half of the problem. Imprinting was meant to carry on the line of werewolf blood. And he was a Black, descendant of chiefs and alphas, how could he even begin to explain that, for the first time anyone had ever heard of, a werewolf had imprinted on another man? Was it because he had forfeited his role as pack leader to Sam? Was it because of what had happened with Seth? He wanted it to be a mistake, a false positive, even as he knew instinctively that it was not. He ran his hands through his hair, not caring that it was spiked with sweat and his hands were filthy. 

Sam was growing impatient.

“Jacob, tell me who you imprinted on!” He snapped, alpha voice nudging Jacob towards obedience. But, as long as Jacob was human, it was only a nudge. Jacob stayed silent and Sam threw up his hands.

“Whatever. We’ll all know next time you patrol, anyway. Here,” he tossed Jacob a pair of jeans. “Go home.”


	3. Remember

Edward could count on one hand the times when he had felt utterly out of control.

He had come of age in a time of world’s fairs and world war. As the son of a prominent Chicago lawyer, he had received the best of everything from infancy. Anything he wished for he could have, as long as it was not something his father did not approve of him wanting. His father had been lord of not only his house, but the world as far as Edward could see. The boy watched and waited, knowing with the certainty of wealth that it was only a matter of time before it was his turn.

For the first few months of that fateful year, the Spanish flu was something that happened to the poor and the weak, the kinds of people that the chauffeur imperiously blew the horn at, the kinds of people who did not exist in the house on Washington Avenue. The names of the dead graduated from the footnotes to the front page, but a seventeen year old Edward Masen feared nothing except social disgrace and his mother’s tears.

Edward Sr faced his own illness as he did everything, stoic and pragmatic to the last signatures on his will. Edward knew that his father would not have wanted him to cry as the sober oak coffin was lowered into the family plot, so he pressed his mouth into a thin unwavering line as he held his mother’s hand. Nor did he cry that night as he sat at his father’s desk--his desk--for the first time. 

On the day that he found the blood on his mother’s handkerchief, he began to realize that the world did not give a damn about the name of his father, the price of Chicago’s best physicians, or that Edward Anthony Mason Jr desperately wanted his mother not to die. He was just another ant crawling across the surface of the Earth, his suffering less insignificant than a drop of water in the far off ocean. 

It was the first time he found himself helpless.

He wept for his mother as she wasted away, sobbing so hopelessly that he did not notice his own cough. 

She died.

He died.

He woke.

He rose from the ashes of his life to bloodlust. The first day was the worst, when even his body would not obey him. But Edward was his father’s son, and in his liberation from a beating broken heart, he took his control back. He rebuilt his life, as it was. He rebuilt himself: stronger, smarter, faster. Edward Masen, the sheltered naive boy, gave way to someone else. Someone more adaptable, better able to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

The second time Edward lost control was when he met Isabella Swan. 

Her scent was strangely intoxicating, awakening something predatory and animalistic that he had been keeping under wraps. And when she approached him, something even stranger became apparent, Edward could not read her mind. For the first time since _ actually _ being seventeen, he felt wrongfooted. Perhaps superhuman powers had made him too lazy to read social cues, but she was constantly surprising him. Bella was so very human--curious to the point of foolishness, naively kind, and always ready to see the best in others. When had Edward become so jaded? When had his own condition stopped being miraculous and started being something embarrassing and inconvenient like a chronic illness? Bella looked at him like he was something magical, a fairytale prince that had stepped right out of a storybook to sweep her off her feet. 

And, oh, she was swept up. She loved him with an all-consuming intensity that left him split between an urge to flee and a desire to protect. She was so fragile, the force of her passion could tear her apart. He was the only one who could hold her together. On the day that he thought she had killed herself for the love of him, when he thought that he had destroyed one of the few good and pure things in the world, the helplessness had torn Edward Cullen to shreds. 

But Edward was nothing if not adaptable. He shifted, and Bella slipped neatly into his life. In a family of matched pairs, she was the perfect last piece. 

Once again, Edward’s life was changing around him and he felt powerless to stop it. The force of Jacob’s imprint was like a slap. Even hours later, as he sat at the piano absentmindedly fingering the keys, he felt the shadow of the sting. 

Edward was out of control again and he hated it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm astonished at the warm reception these first couple of chapters have gotten :) Thanks for reading!


	4. Hide

“Jacob?” Billy Black called from the other side of the door. 

Curled up on the bed with his back to the twilit window, Jacob could see the shadow of his father’s wheelchair in the hall alongside the shapes of several untouched plates from earlier in the day. 

Billy had not been home when Jacob had stumbled, naked as the day he was born, down the hallway and locked himself in his room, but he had quickly become worried when he came back to a silent house.

The thing was, Jacob  _ always _ played music when he was home, often loud enough that his door vibrated and you could hear the lyrics clearly out on the lawn. EDM while he studied, classical while he slept, jazz when he cleaned, pop or hip hop when he was relaxing. Even his upsets had a soundtrack--he blared emo rock when he was pissed off and moaned ballads when he was thinking about Bella. “Edward Cullen is a dick” was an ever-growing playlist that Billy was becoming pretty familiar with. 

But right now?

Utter silence.

Jacob didn’t know how long he had been in his room, clutching his head and fighting the rising panic. He had not eaten, drank, or even gotten up to go to the bathroom. One kind of discomfort was much the same as another at this point, and none could hold a candle to the agony inside his head. His internal monologue was a string of uncreative curse words interspersed by long periods of numbness and a dull ache. 

And above it all--the reason he couldn’t stand to hear any music--a single, jarring tone that made him dizzy with its insistence. A piece of a harmony, painfully dissonant in its incompleteness, urging him to go back.

Back to Edward.

Again and again he replayed that moment when everything went wrong. He could see it as clearly as a film reel--the way the coppery hair fell across his forehead, the intense stare of those amber eyes, the cupid’s bow lips turned down in a resolute frown. Jacob closed his eyes against the image burning in his mind.

“Sam called.” Billy pronounced, apparently content to talk to a locked door. 

Jacob’s eyes flew back open. 

“He wanted to know if you’re ok, since no one’s seen you for more than a week.” 

Damn. He had been laying like this for a week. No wonder Jacob’s whole body hurt when he tried to move.

“He told me that he was pretty sure you imprinted last Sunday, but you seemed scared and you wouldn’t tell anybody who it was.” 

There was a long pause, as if Billy were waiting for some kind of response to confirm or deny the gossip. When Jacob said nothing, his dad cleared his throat and continued, 

“Jacob, I know we don’t talk about important stuff.”  He didn’t sound disappointed, just resigned and a little sad, like when he talked about Rebecca. It made Jacob’s stomach twist with guilt.

“Ever since you phased, you go to Sam when you wanna talk and I get it, I do. You’re almost eighteen and there’s a lot I haven’t been much help with recently. I never had a pack, never changed, never felt an imprint...” he stopped, suddenly, voice choked up in a way that Jacob hadn’t heard since his mom’s funeral. There was another long silence, in which Jacob could imagine his dad fiddling with the brakes on his chair like he did whenever he was overwhelmed. He wondered if Billy was done, if he would just roll away into his room, leaving this difficult conversation, like so many others, unfinished. But there was no glide of wheels across the carpet, just the click-click of the brake handle and a couple of sniffs. Then Billy spoke again, deep voice unsteady.

“God, Jacob, you don’t have to go through this alone. I want you to know that I’m right behind you no matter what. I don’t care who you imprinted on--Bella, Mrs. Maypole, Seth--” Jacob felt a stab of fear and regret, even as he half smiled at the idea of falling for his ninth grade history teacher. 

“You’re my son.” 

Jacob hadn’t realized his eyes were full of tears until they spilled over, mixing with snot as he sobbed. He wasn’t sure why he was crying. Billy had always been a great dad, even if his public eloquence and know-how hadn’t spilled over into their home life. Somehow, though, hearing him say he would be behind Jacob, even if his imprint was awful, lessened the weight of the worry that was suffocating him.

“Dad.” he whispered, voice rough from disuse. Billy heard him.

“I’m here, Jake.”

There were so many things Jacob wanted to say just then. “Thank you,” “I love you, Dad,” “I need your help,” “I imprinted on Edward Cullen.” His mouth opened, but no sound came out besides teary shallow breaths. 

_ I imprinted on Edward Cullen. _

“I can’t do this.” he whimpered.

He couldn’t say it. Speaking the words would make it real, might make it worse.

“Ok,” Billy replied, voice becoming firm. The tribal chieftain voice.

“We’ll figure something out.”

Jacob wanted so badly to believe him. 


End file.
